1. Welcome

Welcome! As a participant in this course, you probably have a vested interest in providing high quality marine services and a desire to improve those services by adhering to the WMO's Marine Services guidelines and regulations. With an increased focus on Impact Based Forecasting and recent updates to the WMO's regulations and guides for marine services by the WMO's Marine Services division (MAR), this course provides an opportunity to assess your current services and identify improvements. 

Much of your time on this course will be spent reviewing several WMO publications and assessing how your current organization's services compare to the WMO's guidelines and regulations. With the push to integrate Impact Based Forecasting across meteorology services, you will also become familiar with the WMO Strategy for Service Delivery. You will take a close look at your marine customers' needs and assess how to best address those needs with the proper information, forecast products, and communication tools. 

This course calls for active engagement on your part together with your organization's key stakeholders. You will collect data for several internal service reviews, interview customers and staff, and assess your forecasting products and communication tools. With that information, you will compile a Marine Service Delivery Context Analysis to share with your organization and your PR. 

A Context Analysis is an examination of the current situation of an organization, team, strategy, program or project. In this case, you are asked to examine some aspects of their organization’s delivery of marine services. Your analysis will inform your organization on how to best meet your customer's needs and to improve delivery of your marine services.